JERUSALEM (JTA) — Two men who reportedly planned to assassinate Yemen’s chief rabbi were arrested.
Agents in Yemen on Nov. 19 arrested the men involved in a plot to kill Rabbi Yahya Yusuf Musa, the head of the small Jewish community of Yemen, according to Reuters.
In a television interview the rabbi had criticized the Shi’ite rebels currently fighting in Yemen, Reuters reported.
Between 200 and 300 Jews are living in Yemen, mostly in the North, where they have been subjected to increasing harassment and violence.
The U.S. State Department has secretly brought about 60 Yemenite Jews to the United States since July, and another 100 are likely to come in the near future, The Wall Street Journal reported last month.
In December 2008, a Yemenite Jew was killed by a Muslim man who ordered Jews to convert or be killed. The killer was sentenced to death.
